CS320 term paper General Guidelines For the term paper, you are to thoroughly investigate your topic. You will need to incorporate at least six sources in your paper. Three of these must be scholarly source besides our textbook. Some web links have been provided to help you with identifying scholarly sources. If you cannot find scholarly sources that directly reference your topic, you will at least be able to find sources that discuss the background issues. For example, if you were researching a particular online scam, you may not find journal articles about this scam, but you would be able to find them on internet scams and fraud. All papers should attempt to take a balanced approach to reporting a topic whenever possible. Discuss social, legal, and ethical implications where they apply to the topic chosen. Purely historical or factual reports with no evaluation or discussion of the topic will not be scored highly. FOCUS your topic, speak to a specific issue. Always use quotes when you are including other people’s words. Give citations for all facts and quotes. Write the paper in your own words and do not plagiarize other people’s works. Discuss how your topic relates to the material covered in the text and/or classroom discussions. The project is to be completed during this course. Do not turn in a paper from another course, your job, etc. Such a paper will not fit the criteria requested and will poor score. The paper should be approximately 2500-3000 words. This is roughly five to six pages, but length will be evaluated by word count instead of pages. Rough outline for the paper, some sections will be less applicable depending on the paper you choose. Cover page with title, your name, CS320, and the semester Introduction/overview of topic and issues to be discussed Background, description, and/or history of the issue Issues related to the topic and various points of view Your comments or evaluation Summary List of references Pay attention to paper organization. If you write an outline first it will help you organize your thoughts and ensure that you cover all the topics for the paper. Dividing the paper into sections may also help. Use a variety of sources for information and arguments. If you use articles from the Web, give the URL and the organization sponsoring the site. There's a lot of junk and unsupported opinion on the Web. Pay attention to quality of your sources. If your topic is covered in the text, do not use the text as your main source. Report in more depth and/or on newer or other aspects of the topic. Plagiarism will not be tolerated for this paper. If you copy large segments of text from a source and present it as your own work, or if you copy an entire paper you will receive a zero on the assignment and may be referred to Judicial Affairs for further disciplinary action. Rough drafts submissions of the paper are not required. However, if you would like to submit a rough draft before the final paper is due, you may do so. Resources: WIU Writing Center http://www.wiu.edu/UWC/ Identifying Academic Sources Purdue OWL site on evaluating sources (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/EvalSrcW/) WIU library overview of scholarly sources (http://www.wiu.edu/users/wat100/scholarly/bingo.htm) WIU periodical overview (http://www.wiu.edu/library/units/reference/refguides/guides/pertypes.htm) Sites on Plagiarism Purdue OWL(Online Writing Lab) site on plagiarism (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html)